


Seasonal Hazard

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Caroling, Fluff, M/M, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 14:24:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cosy Sussex cottage, shrouded in snow. Christmastime. Carolers. ...Aaaand Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasonal Hazard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rabidsamfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidsamfan/gifts).



> A gift to RabidSamFan, who'd asked for fluff. Partially inspired by this image - which to my mind looked like Retirement!Sherlock and !John in Sussex:
> 
>  

John was hip-deep in the latest case story for his publisher – he had to get this damn thing done before January began – when he heard the voices outside, accompanied by the screech of a plastic recorder. Dread smote his heart. "Sherlock," he called.

"I hear them," his husband's testy voice called back from the study. "You didn't put up any fairy-lights outside without telling me, did you?"

"You know me better than that." The shrill little cacophony outside was now clustered at the front door. 

"John, you didn't leave the porch light on, did you?" 

Guilty silence inside, and a horrid version of "Santa Baby" outside. 

Sherlock exhaled (the same way that a hurricane wafts). "Silent running in December, John – _why_ is that so hard to remember?"

"Didn't want to break my other hip in the dark coming home from the shops, dear," John snapped.

The choir unspeakable segued into "The Chipmunk Song." A loud rapping from the door-knocker on the little Sussex cottage. 

Sherlock stood in the doorway between the study and the parlour, glaring at the door. "What's done is done, John. Get your gun."

"Sherlock, they're children!"

"Then fire in the air!" Sherlock threw up his hands. "Jesus, what is difficult about this?"

"No!" John groped for his cane.

Another exhale that registered on the Beaufort Scale. "Fine. Operation Dartmoor. Again. Tedious!"

"It happens to work," John said, hobbling to the front door to push a button on a small box beside the door. 

Seconds later Alvin, Simon and Theodore were replaced by a symphony of child screams as the choristers fled the house – from which the snarling, huffing sound of a gigantic, ill-tempered hound could be heard. 

John switched off the porch light before heading back to his desk. "Hmph. Now that was a much more unified and harmonious sound."

Sherlock headed back to his research. "Perhaps they’re over-rehearsing."


End file.
